- May 5, 2006
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Remember that offence is taken, not given. Italian migrants from the 1950s might not like the word 'wog', but then some 90 year old Irish Catholic probably doesn't like the word 'mick' either.
There's a grey area between what is colloquial and what is defamatory. The idea that Nick Giannopoulos can make a film called The Wog Boy and take the piss out of wog culture but the word immediately becomes offensive if some Anglo uses it is ridiculous. People are too precious these days. There's still a huge divide between most Aboriginal people and the rest of the population, so the idea of 'friendly racist terms' is a long way off. There's no friendly banter when one group has an average life expectancy 10 years less than everyone else etc. Kevin Bloody Wilson does use 'abo' in his songs and a lot of Aboriginal people love him, but I'd say that's because of the context and his background working in Kalgoorlie and certainly wouldn't recommend getting up on stage and singing about abos...
The N-word has become a bit of a parody thanks to unimaginative R&B tracks but has no basis in Australian language anyway so anyone who uses it here is just a ****en idiot. It's an American thing and if they're happy with the place they've reached WRT words in their culture/language then good for them.
There's a grey area between what is colloquial and what is defamatory. The idea that Nick Giannopoulos can make a film called The Wog Boy and take the piss out of wog culture but the word immediately becomes offensive if some Anglo uses it is ridiculous. People are too precious these days. There's still a huge divide between most Aboriginal people and the rest of the population, so the idea of 'friendly racist terms' is a long way off. There's no friendly banter when one group has an average life expectancy 10 years less than everyone else etc. Kevin Bloody Wilson does use 'abo' in his songs and a lot of Aboriginal people love him, but I'd say that's because of the context and his background working in Kalgoorlie and certainly wouldn't recommend getting up on stage and singing about abos...
The N-word has become a bit of a parody thanks to unimaginative R&B tracks but has no basis in Australian language anyway so anyone who uses it here is just a ****en idiot. It's an American thing and if they're happy with the place they've reached WRT words in their culture/language then good for them.




